Warning: include_once(/homepages/16/d351569275/htdocs/clickandbuilds/WordPress/JewogleStore/wp-content/themes/presso/social.png): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /homepages/16/d351569275/htdocs/clickandbuilds/WordPress/JewogleStore/wp-content/themes/presso/functions.php on line 300

Warning: include_once(): Failed opening 'social.png' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php5.5') in /homepages/16/d351569275/htdocs/clickandbuilds/WordPress/JewogleStore/wp-content/themes/presso/functions.php on line 300

Warning: include_once(/homepages/16/d351569275/htdocs/clickandbuilds/WordPress/JewogleStore/wp-content/themes/presso/social0.png): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /homepages/16/d351569275/htdocs/clickandbuilds/WordPress/JewogleStore/wp-content/themes/presso/functions.php on line 304

Randy Cohen

This article is about the writer and humorist. For the financial economist and professor, see Randolph Cohen.

Randy Cohen is an Americanwriter and humorist known as the author of The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine between 1999 and 2011. The column was syndicated throughout the U.S. and Canada. Cohen is also known as the author of several books, a playwright, and the host of the public radio show Person Place Thing.

He spent several years "writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for leading newspapers and magazines," including The New Yorker, Harpers, and The Atlantic; his first paid, published piece was in 1976 for The Village Voice[1] In 1981, his book of satiric letters, Modest Proposals, was published by St. Martins Press.[1] In 1989, his collection of humor pieces, Diary of a Flying Man, was published by Knopf. In 2002, The Good, The Bad, & The Difference: How to Tell Right from Wrong in Everyday Situations was published by Doubleday. His book Be Good: how to navigate the ethics of everything was by Chronicle Books in August 2012.

Cohen wrote for Slate starting in 1996. At Slate, he became known for "News Quiz," a satiric reader-participation feature which began in February 1998 and ended in November 2000. He also co-wrote a first-season episode of Ed, first broadcast on February 14, 2001.

Cohen wrote The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine between 1999 and 2011. From 2001 to 2005, he also answered listeners' questions on ethics for the National Public Radio radio news program, All Things Considered.[6] In a surprise move,[citation needed] the Times ended Cohen's stint as The Ethicist, making his final column Sunday, February 27, 2011. The column continued with the same format but a new byline until early 2015, when it abandoned the question and answer format for a discussion format among a number of persons.

Cohen donated $585 to MoveOn.org's voter registration effort in 2004, apparently in violation of Times policy, which had banned political donations in 2003. The Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review decided on June 20, 2007, to drop Cohen's column, which had been scheduled to begin running in the paper on the following Saturday, because of his donation. Cohen responded that he saw no ethical violation, because he viewed MoveOn as no more activist than other organizations, such as the Boy Scouts of America. Nonetheless, he said he would not make such donations in the future.[7]

In a public speech archived as a podcast on the New York Times podcast website, Cohen outlines his personal beliefs about ethics as being ultimately dependent on a person's immediate circumstances, while dismissing the notion that personal moral character might influence an individual's ethics.

Cohen categorically rejects the idea that individual people are inherently good or bad, asserting that in his opinion all individuals have in them the capacity to do good or bad at different times, in different contexts. In Cohen's view of ethics, individuals are all more or less the same with respect to ethics, but society is often to blame for the very existence of an ethical dilemma, which aligns him (by his own admission) with many of the beliefs of the Society for Ethical Culture; a fundamental premise of this ethical framework is that humans are morally obligated to promote changes in society so all people can lead more ethical lives.